Smoking Brisket and flame went out!!

[smokinhogs1146]

Okay so I put my 12 pound brisket on at 10:30pm in my masterbuilt pro propane smoker. Everything was going great and my temperature gauge was showing 235 degrees at 2:30am so I went to sleep. I woke up at 4am to check and apparently the flame went out (probably due to wind) and the gauge was all the way down. I probed the meat and it read 142 degrees. I kept trying to restart the smoker for about an hour but it was just too windy and it wouldn't stay lit for more than ten minutes. I brought it inside and foiled it and threw it in the oven at 240 degrees right around 5:30pm. Right before I put it in the oven, the internal temperature was 139 degrees. My question is, should this meat be okay or should I scrap it? I'm not 100% sure it got over 140 in the first four hours even though it was close. Any comments would be most helpful!

 

[mike5051]

If the brisket was still at 142 when you discovered that the flame went out, it had to be quite higher for some time.  I think it will be fine. 

Mike

 

[johnmeyer]

If you are worried about food safety, I'm sure it will be fine. The "danger zone" begins to end at about 130 degrees (some of the bad critters begin to slowly succumb at that temperature). More important to your tale is that food must be in that zone for quite awhile (four hours, I think, is the time limit before you have to worry).

Finally, the danger zone works differently when approached "from below" than "from above." Since your food was brought into the "safe zone" (at or above 140 degrees), the pathogens that you are concerned about have been killed or, at the very least, significantly reduced. Therefore, it will take much longer for them to multiply to unsafe levels. Since your equipment was working fine initially, I assume the meat didn't spend much time in the danger zone, and therefore pathogens and the toxins they produce were not produced at a rate any more than they would be in any other situation.

 

[noboundaries]

You'll be fine.  Any doubt, make chili with the brisket!  Brisket in a chili becomes melt in your mouth tender, especially the point. 

 

[johnmeyer]

As I re-read the initial post, I remembered having the same thing happen to me about six months ago. I have an electric smoker, and the power went out. Had to fire up the generator and finish the meal that way (couldn't finish in the indoor oven because it too is electric).

Also, I bought my first gas grill (a Weber Genesis) back in 1995 and was worried about running out of propane in the middle of a meal. The solution was obvious: I was just finishing a remodel, and had the plumber run a gas line to where I was going to put the grill. I then purchased a natural gas version of the Weber grill I wanted.

In the 20+ years since then, I've cooked on that grill several times a week, and almost every time I light it I remember that decision. The cost of the gas line was virtually nothing (a few hundred dollars) compared to the cost of propane and the extra time and effort to drop off and pick up canisters. I've never once regretted going with natural gas (I don't need to move my grill to other locations).

Since a gas line and a conversion may not be on your immediate list of expenditures, I assume you will at least be getting a backup cylinder so that this doesn't happen again ...

 

[gary s]

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